When Dante’s Divine Comedy opens in 1300 with those famous lines, the narrator himself is about 35, or–for a lifespan of 70 years–half-way through his life.  But I’m not in my 30’s.  I’m no longer even in my 40’s, as I have just turned 50 this year. 

But I am also no longer in my dark wood, wandering.  And my straight way that was lost–if I ever had it–has become remarkably clear in the last few years. 

Now, half-way through my projected lifespan of a century–I come from a long-lived bunch–I am taking time out for a major pilgrimage.  I will be walking Spain’s thousand-year-old El Camino de Santiago de Compostelo or The Way of Saint James, one of the most important pilgrimages of medieval times. 

So much of pilgrimage is about contemplation and gathering insights that bring one closer the soul, a connection with others, and often a connection with Deity.  Like others, this pilgrimage for me is also about contemplation and insights into the second half of my life, but it’s also a celebration of where I’ve been these past 50 years and where I’m going, of what I’ve gotten out of life whether given or taken, and what I want to get from my remaining days.  It’s an affirmation that I am at last on the right path and that I always have been, even when I didn’t know it, because it led me to this place. 

My pilgrimage, as is yours if you should choose to walk The Camino or choose to take a brief trip to some other place, famous or not, to contemplate the soul, is about the metaphor of the journey and the profound insights to be gained from understanding that life itself is a journey on a much grander scale than a simple physically difficult, emotionally challenging, spiritually insightful walk in the footsteps where thousands have trod before.

Today, I finally understood the new Abraham-Hicks’ term, the grid.    I first heard it a couple of months ago when listening to an mp3 from, I believe, late fall 2011 or perhaps very early in 2012.  I had to listen to the session again and kinda-sorta thought I understood it. When my 19-year-old and I attended the live workshop in Orlando in late March, we listened to more talk of the grid and thought we understood but it still wasn’t clear.

The last several workshops haven’t talked much about the vortex or upstream-downstream. My daughter wondered aloud if perhaps this new term replaced the vortex.  As I understand it, no.  The vortex is still that feel-good place where things manifest.   The grid is more of a mental process that can really screw us up or, if we’re in the vortex, be so pleasing to watch fill up with goodness.  My daughter and I originally thought of the grid as a framework or, as I tried to explain it, like the straight edges of a puzzle with things filling in to form a picture.  That wasn’t quite right, and I’m sure that if Esther Hicks reads these posts, she cringes.

Today I was listening to the Houston workshop download from April 2012 and then went back over the course of the afternoon and listened to it two more times in its entirely.  Something Abraham said this time really clicked because I’d been struggling with a friend’s absence all day.  I was able to turn it around and feel so much better by evening, even though I still didn’t know any more than I had in the morning.

It went kinda like this:

Me:  It’s morning.  I didn’t hear back from Jim-Bob last night and his last message was sorta cryptic.   I hope he’s okay.    Something really bad happened just a few days back and there was nothing I could do to make it better.   I hope it didn’t happen again.  Or something worse.  It’s not like him to ignore me.  Now I’m really worried.  He hasn’t answered back today either.  Something must be wrong.   

Yep, I spent at least 17 seconds focusing on how something might be wrong.  My grid started with a simple framework of “I feel lack because I haven’t heard back from Jim-Bob,” and I quickly filled it in with negativity and worry in the next 17 seconds.  If, as Abraham says, you spend 17 seconds on something, then you attract more of it, so yes, that’s what I did.  That full grid started attracting other little grids (this is how I see them) of ideas that started to fill in.

Me (five minutes later):  Maybe there’s a medical reason I haven’t heard back from Jim-Bob.  Or maybe someone is hurt.  He drives like a testosterone-amped teenager–what if he’s been in an accident?  What if he fell off a roof helping someone out like he often does?  Maybe he can’t answer the phone because he’s unconcious….

Yeah….  I’m vaguely aware that I saw my parents do this all my life–start those frameworks and let them fill in with outrageous worries that came true again and again.  I don’t want to do that.  Must…focus…on…something else.  I have an extremely busy mind, so if I’m not to worry about things or people, I have to focus on something I’m creating or put myself in a place where I’m really enjoying what I’m doing and forget about anything and everything else.  If I ever start to brood, I’m damned, and bad stuff will come forth.

But sure enough, an hour later, after I had a great brunch with another friend, I checked my phone to see if Jim-Bob had surfaced.  Nope.

Me:  Maybe he’s ignoring me.  Why would he ignore me?  Does he not want to be friends any longer?  Is he mad at me for some reason?  Maybe he’s trying to put some distance between us.  Maybe he’s trying to build a wall to keep me out like you-know-who used to do.    Wait!  Stop! I’m building that framework and letting it fill in with all sorts of things that I don’t want to manifest.  Stop!

Yes, I’d started to catch myself at this point.  I spent time with other friends and had a fun day watching The Avengers with Tonya and enjoying the man-candy on screen.   Meanwhile,  I heard back from Jim-Bob but the conversation stopped there.  Something about it reminded me of my ex and I launched into another grid.

Me:  I wonder if he’s manipulating me.  Is he trying to get an emotional reaction out of me by withholding communication? He knows my history with that and how much it upsets me when someone does that.  What if he’s just playing with my emotions.  If he’s just playing with me, maybe I’ll end the friendship when I get back from my upcoming vacation and–  STOP. 

Almost up to 17 seconds of new doubts and worries, just that quickly.  And after one 17-second grid, I would have gone right into the next one until I was clearly bringing a scenario into fruition that I did not want.  I will admit, I went through this grid-building several more times, stopping myself each time.   Not even refocusing my thoughts on Captain America’s cute ass could change that!

But after a while of consciously catching myself when I started to brood, I pulled back and started to focus on other things (including Captain America and Thor…..) and I’d get only a few seconds into the mystery of Jim-Bob’s absence.  I’ve done this sort of thing most of my life–it was well modeled for me–but I don’t worry and stress like I used to.  Still, it does come up every now and then.  The more emotionally attached I am to someone, the more I let this bad habit catch me.  Abraham-Hicks has been instrumental in changing my focus and my brooding talents.

I started looking for fun stuff I enjoyed, so whenever my mind flitted to worries about Jim-Bob, I turned it to something lighter.  For 17 seconds.  And then 17 seconds more.

Me:  I’ll just water my patio garden quickly before I go back inside the house.  Wow, these roses are so pretty, and the purple ones smell so good.  The twilight is really pretty tonight.  And it’s not too hot.  I should build a bonfire tonight and sit out here in the moonlight.  Oh, the full moon is rising.  Wow, that’s  the Super Moon!  So pretty.  I don’t want this moment to end.  I just want to be right here in Nature with this garden around me and this moon above me, and I want to hold on to this moment.  I miss being with my friends who are camping this weekend, but  it’s beautiful here, too.

I was in a sudden beautiful, serene place.  I had started one beautiful grid and gone right on to the next, all positive and heart-warming.   I heard my phone go off then, a series of 3 text messages coming in.  No, not Jim-Bob, but Trae, one of my friends who’d gone camping under the full moon on a trip I’d bowed out of.  His message to me was as beautiful and heart-warming as the grid that had just filled in, all about how much I’d helped him in the last year and his appreciation for me.  He was watching campfires and the full moon, too, and thought of me.  I’m glad I was in his grid.  His messages made my day.

Here at the mid-point of my life, I am not in a dark wood wandering as Dante was in his Divine Comedy.   The last two years have been just…incredible.  Through my studies on manifestation, particularly with the Teachings of Abraham, bringing dreams to fruition has become not only achievable but in many cases…easy.  I’m almost afraid to say that out loud so I don’t jinx it, but I’ve really come to understand setting intentions and seeing the most incredible situations unfold before me.  I still work very hard, but then, I always have worked hard.  The difference is that in the last two years in particular, something shifted and at last in my life, I am seeing the pay-off.

This is happening in most areas of my life, particularly the ones I tend to focus on most:  relationship, career, creativity/writing, family, and health.  It’s been two years since a relationship suddenly and shockingly ended, making way for an entirely different life.  The energy changed over the next few months after that to focusing on what I wanted–for a change–and that if anything in my life wasn’t satisfying, then I could change it.  There comes a time in your life when you realize you’ve taken care of everyone else and put yourself second because their needs came first, especially younger children, sick family, and needy friends.  It may have been easier to be second or even last for a decade or two, but at mid-life, you realize that you could spend the rest of your life allowing the dreams and needs of others to take precedence and you begin to wonder, “When will it ever be my turn?”  And in the last couple of years, that’s the point I’ve come to.

When will it be my turn?  Now. 

I look back at the relationship that ended and thank the Gods.  I was within hours of making the biggest mistake of my life, one that would have severely limited my future if not destroyed it, when that bolt of lightning came down and showed me the one thing that would make me leave without looking back.  Well, except to take that smoldering bolt out of the ground and hurl it back at him, which had not generally been my style in the past.  Had that relationship stayed intact in any form, I would not have met the best friend I’ve ever had.  Once that previous relationship fell away, I could feel  something very different forming in the air:  a deep and fulfilling friendship, even though it was a while later before I realized it.

Abundance in any one area of my life has flowed over in to all other areas. You know how it’s easy to feel scarcity in all parts of your life when you feel lack in one?  Imagine my surprise and enthusiam to discover that abundance can multiply just like lack always has for me! 

In the last 18 months, I am accomplishing the best health of my life, writing books passionately and with no one’s permission but my own, immersing myself in a deeply compassionate friendship with someone who has become my rock in tragedy and the first person to share my celebration with, and loving my job again after a long time of settling for what was best for my children. 

Here’s the part I want to celebrate right now:

Around 18 months ago, my bff asked me what kind of dream job I wanted and to describe it to him.  I was in a staff job because of my custody arrangement but with my younger daughter leaving for college, the legal connstraints were about to fall away.  It was time to dream about my next job and even whether I wanted to move to a new city.  I told him the kind of work I wanted to do and even the three customers I wanted to work with.  

After that, it was a relatively quick bam-bam-bam-bam of things happening, falling into place.  Suddenly I was working with the people I wanted to work with, the customers I wanted to support, doing the kind of work I love most.  Quickly after that, I was promoted.  And then something seemingly terrible happened:  we were told we were facing a major command reorganization.  Out of the ashes something that seemed so dire, a new group has been created that will take my current job to the next level, and I will be in charge of it in three days..  How did that happen?  By the time I return from my pilgrimage this summer, I will be 100% in my dream job.  Not just my current idea of a dream job, but the dream job I have had for two decades.    

This.  Feels.  Like.  A miracle.

All of it does.  Everything in my life feels like a miracle.  And that means what I need to do is stop and realize that and inhale the long and lovely breath of appreciation at the thought of what I have and how my path has led me here, even through the strangest of territory and dangerous pitfalls.

I am not in a dark wood wandering.  I am walking with pleasure and purpose through an enchanted forest full of moonlight, and in wonder.

– Tarzan from SURVIVOR

On the 11th Episode of Survivor One World, 2 May 2012, they brought in the contestants’ family/friends after they’d been away for a month.  We got a chance to see some emotional reunions, even among the most hardass of the players.  Something Tarzan, the last man standing, had to say caught my attention.  He told Jeff Probst that he felt his wife’s presence on the island.

Whoa. I understood what he meant.  This is what I mean when I talk about energetic connections and the empathic bonds I have with loved ones across the miles.  Then again, maybe it was just a fluke that he said that.  At least, that’s what I told myself until he said of his wife,

“We have a quantum entanglement.”

Yes.  He understands empathic bonds, energetic connections, and quantum entanglement.

I’m glad that more press is being given to empaths.  Check out this page and the video where these connections are described as an invisible umbilical cord across distance.  Yes, that is exactly how it feels to an empath.

Exactly.

Here are two previously published books that have been released as ebooks:

And…here are 3 covers I’m working on for some of my more popular non-fiction guides: 

You’d think that jury duty and court cases would remember the premise of separation of Church and State.  What if the defendant is an atheist?  Or Muslim?  Or Wiccan?  Does this mean only Christians can sit in judgment?  Will a non-Christian get a fair trial?

The last time I gave a deposition was at least 15 years ago.  I was Christian at the time and still didn’t particularly care for either the idea of swearing on a Bible (“What if some people don’t believe in the Bible?” I’d asked…to incredulous looks) or swearing in general.  I was told that all that had changed, that the legal system was more observant of separating Church and State, that I would no longer be asked to put my hand on a Bible or swear to the Father of Jesus.  That’s not entirely true.  The Bible may be gone from the courtroom but God is not.

At this point in my spiritual journey, swearing means nothing to me but an insult.  I don’t lie, and I believe that my word is good enough.  Swearing won’t make me any more truthful so it’s offensive to me to be asked.  And why would swearing to tell the truth make any difference to a liar?  What’s the point? Does swearing to your god make you think twice about lying?  If so, why?  Would not the same god strike you down for lying when not under oath as when under oath?  Isn’t the sin the same?

Yes, I have taken oaths in the past.  I have taken them to my country in pursuit of my livelihood.  I have been Christian and sworn so-help-me-God to the God of the Christians.  And I have taken an oath to the Morrigan.  Would I take the latter oath again?  Perhaps.   But not because the oath makes me any more likely to do what I have committed to do but that the oath in that context is ritual to me.

So I’ve been summoned before a court and told to swear.  Is that the same as being summoned to attend a ritual?  A ritual where, if someone asked that the words be changed to “So help me, Morrigan” or “So help me, Allah” or “So help me, Flying Spaghetti Monster,” the 200 people sitting here fidgeting would be up in arms?  Would that make them pay attention to the words?  To the concept of separation of Church and State?

I look around this room full of perspective jurors, not yet knowing that I will be asked both to swear and to conclude my oath with “So help me, God” three separate times in one day before I take my seat in the jury box and yet wonder why witnesses on the stand are asked only to “swear” or “affirm,” with no invocation of God.   I wonder if any one of these 200 people in the room with me have given So-Help-Me-God a second thought.  Or is it only those of us to whom the invocation of a God means more than just words we’ve become accustomed to  from over-usage?

That you all been waiting for (and emailing me about!):  the final results of my cleanse.  This is Days 5-7 of this product review series on Renew Life’s Total Body Rapid Cleanse and the summary of the results.

Days 5, 6, and 7 were really no-brainer days for me.  No big surprises, not big side effects, no distress at all.  I continued to drink lots of water and exercise–mostly power-walking, leisure walking, and yoga.  Those are my tips for the last 3 days:  drink water and do some form of exercise to get the most out of our cleanse and sweat out those toxins.

So.  The final results of my cleanse after 7 days?  Honestly? 

I followed the instructions.  I did not cheat.  I didn’t eat cake or guzzle margaritas.  On the other hand, I also didn’t change my diet or exercise regimen since the recommended diet, etc, is already part of my daily lifestyle.  I eat very little gluten or sugar, eat clean (and I mean REALLY clean, not just skipping Oreo cookies on weekdays), exercise 6-7 times a week, and drink tons of water. 

Did I feel oh, so much better without all those toxins in me?  Um….I felt good but not significantly better than I usually feel by eating according to my specific needs and allergies.  I do my best under normal conditions to NOT eat, breathe, or rub toxins on my skin.  It’s nearly impossible to do 100% in our modern world, but I am conscious of how our food and environment has been altered with chemicals and bacteria.  So perhaps I did not have as many toxins to get rid of as others trying the cleanse and reporting feeling oh-so-good.  I really didn’t feel any different.

Did I lose weight?  Several pounds?  Five?  More?  Um…no.  If anything, I was up a few ounces, but no, it was stable overall.  Certainly none lost.  Then again, I didn’t just go cold-turkey from a daily dose of Death by Chocolate or other yummy desserts.  Maybe people with 5-10 pounds of weight loss to report really made a significant change in diet that translated into pounds off?  For me, no change in diet or regimen meant no change in pounds.

Did I lose inches in my waistline?  Hmmm, sorta.  I lost one inch off my waist.  Nowhere else.  Since I didn’t change anything except to do the cleanse, I’ll certainly give the cleanse credit for that one inch.

Did my skin turn clearer?  In the last 2-3 days, yes, it did seem clearer.  However, (and here’s a tip you might just love!) I’ve had far better luck with clearing my skin (and feeling good) by eating salmon, blueberries, leafy green veggies, and eggs (and nothing else) for three days prior to a must-look-good-event than I got from the cleanse.   Three days of anti-inflammatory, high Omega foods make my skin dewey and glowy.

That’s it!  I’ll continue to blog more health product reviews here on occasion, as well as write about my 20-pound loss and what I do to feel better and healthier than I ever have in my life.  Enjoy!

Herb garden meets Stonehenge. Photo by Lorna Tedder.

From a young age, I was taught not to judge others, even though the people who preached did little to practice it.  Not judging was one of the earliest lessons I was taught in church…a church that did not allow anyone of another race, religion, or “alternative lifestyle” to darken its doors, and was quite adamant about a woman’s place as well.  Judging not has always seemed to be a spiritual lesson, even among other spiritualities, that we should aspire to, yet fail at daily.

People LIKE to judge.  Especially when they feel superior to the person they are judging!

And suddenly, as a US citizen with a driver’s license, I’m picked for jury duty and I quickly note how many other people suddenly do NOT want to judge anyone else.  How many excuses can one person come up with to “get out of jury duty”?  I had originally asked to be excused months before because the trial would have decimated my plans for Winter Solstice and our perfectly timed Burning Bowl Ritual.  I was happy to be called any other time, and I was called back several times after that, with several postponements from the court, before I finally was selected for a personal injury case four months later.

It was…enlightening…and not in a good way.  I walked out feeling tainted and disgusted.  I had done my duty and had sat in judgment of my peers, but my judgment wasn’t complete.  I was not allowed by law to consider certain things I observed, and other testimony was stricken and we were told we couldn’t consider it.  This, for me, was agony.  I had to make a decision I did not fully agree with because I had to base my judgment on a limited number of facts.

And yet, we do that every day, don’t we?   I know I’ve had people judge me on a handful of  two or three facts.  These are not good or bad, just…facts.   These are facts I will not deny are true.  They’re facts I’ve never hidden.  They’re just not all the facts, not the whole truth.  In some cases, I’ve refused to give people all the facts because it’s none of their business.  In others, I’ve never been asked for facts I would freely give.  It’s just too easy to judge others based on a few interesting kernels of truth and ignore or not be aware of so many other facts that would make a difference–or might–in the outcome of the judgment.  You can’t help but put yourself in the place of the plaintiff or the defendant, based on how the facts you’re presented correlate to your own life.

So, after being asked in a court of law to judge–based on a smattering of facts alone–and render a verdict, I’ve become acutely aware of how many people willingly judge without more than a scant idea of what’s really going on. 

Maybe this is why our spiritual teachers tell us not to judge:  only the judge has all the facts.

This is Day 4 of this product review series on Renew Life’s Total Body Rapid Cleanse. For those of you who were concerned that I didn’t post Day 4 right away, no worries–it didn’t kill me!  Simply, I’m under multiple deadlines. 

Day 3 Tips:

1. Drink water. I’ll say it yet again.  Drink, drink, drink!  Not only will you be dehydrated but you’ll also want to help wash those toxins out.

2. Get some exercise.  Cardio, walking, whatever will make you sweat.  This will also help to get those toxins out.

Day 3 Results:

1. Headaches are gone.

2. Again, no gastric distress. All gone!

3.  Still feeling dehydrated but not as bad as previous days.

4.  At this point, I realized that I’d been having a little sinus congestion early on.  It seemed that every day brought a new way of getting toxins out of my system, whether congestion, increase trips to the bathroom, etc.  Which brings me to the big surprise on day 4:  I was sweating like crazy all day, even without light to moderate exercise.  This was the only “sweat day” of the cleanse, and I was glad to be off work that day and only hanging out at the house. 

Next, Days 5-7 and a wrap-up.

I can be the politest and most compassionate person in the world, but at times when I am truly stressed, those things will fall away and I’ll go into survival mode.  I cannot at those times afford the extra weight of anyone pulling at me with mundane, non-urgent affairs.  I can try to keep carrying everyone–as I’ve learned on my spiritual path–or I can shuck off the excess, like shrugging out of heavy mantels or dense rucksacks.  There was a time when I insisted on lugging all that extra weight along with me instead of taking care of myself first.  It’s a lesson that re-asserts itself on occasion when I am stressed, though I am rarely stressed in the ways I used to be.    Sometimes, it seems all I have to do is say to family and certain friends that I have a once-in-a-lifetime event approaching that I’m really stressing about and, in the 24 hours before the event, every imaginable drama will take place where people are verbally demanding my attention on their petty squabbles rather than on getting through my own infrequent perilous gate.  It’s a lesson, yes, to admit to myself that I cannot do it all, at least not today, and something will have to wait or be passed by.

Recently, when I was dealing with a life or death situation (not mine) and barely able to spare the time for 4 hours of sleep a night, I was chided by a stranger for being late with a blog post.  The complaint brought me to a complete halt, like running hard past crowds and hearing one voice among the many that made me stop and whirl and say, “What????” 

“Get over it,” I snapped. 

Or maybe I should write that differently:  “Get over it.”  I snapped. 

 Because something in me did snap at that point. 

I believe it’s important for each of us to determine our priorities and stick to them.  We may not really realize that we can’t actually do everything we’ve either wanted to do or promised to do until we are so overwhelmed with work or life events that we have to choose what to do and what to let go.  We live in an instant-answer kind of world where an email that isn’t answered in a few hours or a text that isn’t answered immediately will get us an angry snipe in return or a guilt trip.  Suddenly we have to start distinguishing what’s a part of our priority and what will have to wait.   And if the lesser priority doesn’t like it, they can “get over it.”

But we need to get over things, too.  What happens when an incident or a comment upsets us?  It  can pull us away from our priorities, make us focus on something unimportant, pull us away from our path.  An old friend of mine used to give upsetting incidents (negative book reviews in her case) 5 minutes, during which she would scream and throw things.  Then she was done and moved on.  Another friend will allow herself to be upset or obsessive for 24 hours but no more.  These are ways they’ve come to deal with things that pull them off course because otherwise, they would both spend weeks retelling the same story and reliving the same anger or hurt.   It’s not that they forget…they just force themselves to move forward. 

To get over it.

They may not forgive it intentionally.  They may not remember it after a little while.  It’s not that they try to forgive or forget but they acknowledge the incident or emotion and then move forward.  It happened. The bell can’t be unrung.  In the big scheme of things, these incidences usually do not matter at all.  They’ve taken a step back to look at their priorities and what fits and what can fall away for now or until there is more time or inclination.  They choose to take care of those priorities first. 

And then, they get over it.

This is Day 3 of this product review series on Renew Life’s Total Body Rapid Cleanse.  For those of you who were concerned that I didn’t post Day 3 right away, I  was under deadline with The Secret Lives of Librarians…only a couple more chapters to go!  The cleanse had nothing to do with my delay in continuing this series.

Day 3 Tips:

1. Drink water.  Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink!   No matter that you already drink 100 ounces a day already. Drinking 64 ounces a day is a bare minimum during the entire cleanse, I found, but for day 3 (and possibly the later part of day 2), drink even more.  Stay away from caffeinated beverages and anything that would sure as a diuretic or may you dehydrated.

Day 3 Results:

1. Another day of headache.  This time, it required only 1 headache pill and was gone by mid-day.

2. Again, no gastric distress.  I was worried because I had to drive all afternoon, but the concerns I’d read about in various reviews never happened.   Day 3 is supposed to be the absolute worst of the cleanse, but my system took it very well, unlike with some people. 

3. The worst part of the day was how dehydrated I became and how quickly.  Throughout day 2, I drank, drank, drank.  I went to bed around midnight, woke twice during the night to go to urinate, and woke about daylight in severe pain in my legs.  OMG, I could barely stand up.  My leg aches were worse than either the flu or the morning after climbing the steep steps of the Glastonbury Tor when I was out of shape.  They just aaaaaached.  This is a sign of dehydration, so I downed a bottle of water as quickly as I could and soon felt much better.  The leg aches subsided.  This cleanse does dehydrate so even the few hours between a bottle of water before bedtime and morning light had a strong effect on me.  I kept a bottle of water nearby to sip on throughout the rest of the cleanse.

Next, Day 4….and a surprise.

Lorna’s highly emotional pagan love story is free on kindle 19-21 March to celebrate the first day of Spring.  Enjoy!

A Reverence for Trees: A Pagan Love Story

by Lorna Tedder

Published by Spilled Candy Books

Lorna Tedder’s critically acclaimed novelette of sacred marriage, healing, and forgiveness. Originally published by Berkley Books.

*******

Download the ebook from Amazon Kindle now.

Nothing about my belief system has changed very much in that time period, and I’ve continued to write and share what I’ve discovered with others, not really paying attention to the news or culture around me.  Instead of allowing those things to influence me, I’ve gone deeper within to learn more about myself and Deity–and then sharing that knowledge with anyone interested.

My first clue that something was afoot was not my own self-discoveries but in learning that three people whom I’d never met considered me to be the founder of a spiritual movement. That was a wake-up call. 

The second clue that something was going on was a sudden surge in keyword searches on my websites and blogs:

What is a spiritual eclectic?

What is spiritual eclecticism?

What is eclectic spirituality?

Prior to 2009, the only keyword searches on my sites for those terms had come from romantic rivals who knew I wrote a blog by that name. 

What Eclectic Spirituality Isn’t

Both cynics and fundamentalists who do not understand what Eclectic Spirituality is all about tend to snub it as the equivalent of “spiritual but not religious.”  Eclectic Spirituality is anything but “spiritual but not religious.”  It’s far more specific and advanced, but not necessarily standard or uniform, or even consistent with another’s spiritually eclectic practice. 

“Spiritual but not religious” has become a popular way of saying, “I don’t identify with any particular church or religion but I’m a good person.”    I have exes who are atheists and agnositics but put them on an online dating site and they are suddenly “spiritual but not religious,” or occasionally–because they all attended a couple of  weddings and funerals in one particular  church building–they call themselves Methodists.  Those exes of mine scoff at any reference to God, unless it looks good on their resumes.  They do not pray, meditate, or make any attempt to connect with a Higher Power or Universal Law of One.  They are “spiritual but not religious,” yes, but spiritual in the way that we are all spiritual beings having an physical experience and not spiritual in the sense of seeking Oneness with Deity.

Critics–and why, please tell me, are there critics at all?  Or judges of anyone’s personal faith?  That, I do not understand.–downplay Eclectic Spirituality as a popular buzzword, something that’s phony, something we heathens say…because we haven’t found The. One. True. Way. To. God. Yet.    Then again, for people who think that their particular brand of spirituality is the only way to God, it’s hard for them to make any assessment of anyone else’s belief system without sounding arrogant, uninformed, or merely insulting.

What Eclectic Spirituality Is

Eclectic Spirituality is another way of saying, “One size does not fit all.” In my belief, each person has a spiritual path as individual as that person is. 

Not all elements of Christianity will resonate with a Christian.  Some elements will feel patently wrong, and if they have to accept all the elements–at least as they are taught by specific churches, ministers, or denominations–then barriers begin to form and these people distance themselves from their churches, their God, and their own deeply entrenched belief systems.   

The same is true of other religions.  Not all elements of Wicca, for example, are consistently interpretted or practiced by different trads or circles.  There are those who shun paganism entirely because of various elements they see as too different for their childhood foundations or earlier spiritual practices. 

Eclectic Spirituality does not dumb down an existing religion but rather, it takes the foundation of a religion or set of beliefs and goes a level higher, bulding on that foundation, adding new things that work for that particular person’s path, new things that strengthens the bond between that person and Deity.  I was a devout Christian who became a devout Wiccan and then on top of all my previous spiritual beliefs, I laid a template of the Law of Attraction that adds a far richer texture to my spirituality and my connection with Deity than anything I found in Christianity or Wicca alone. 

I have Wiccan friends who have begun to study quantum physics and Ceremonial Magician friends who rave about noetic theory.  I have shaman friends who have augmented their spiritual practice with the Teachings of Abraham.  Though Eclectic Wicca and Eclectic Paganism are well-known and widely accepted terms,  Eclectic Christianity is not.  And yet…

Over the last decade, I have witnessed many of my Christian friends become increasingly eclectic in their beliefs.  Many of them now practice candle magick and crystal healing, though most protest my calling it that, even though, having been both Christian and later Wiccan, these elements of their practices are nearly identical.

Eclectic Spirituality is a way of going deeper into any spiritual practice, pulling into it–as I like to tell my own students–whatever works.  I am emphatic on the idea of experimentation and figuring things out for yourself. 

I am not opposed to structure, but this is part of my personality.  I like to know where the boundaries are, and I can  choose to leap over them if I want, or break them down, or stay within them.  Again, whatever works for me.  Whatever helps me to make that connection with Deity that I crave and that I love, and that results in marvelous things happening for me.

Why Is Eclectic Spirituality Important

We live in a wonderful age where we are connected by technology and can share quickly and widely with almost anyone.  We have opportunities to learn and enhance our spirituality in ways that have never been available before.  For centuries, most religions have been very structured in their nature and–because there were not many other options available to us–we grew up in a particular structure, we pursued that structure into adulthood, we taught our students and our children that structure, and we were buried in that structure.  We found our Gods within that structure, and we learned all we could within that structure. 

These are exciting times–we now have opportunities to learn outside of that structure, to go beyond it everything we’ve seen before, to building something new, to learn something new about God and about ourselves.  What we learn may not necessarily be perfect for the person next to us or our child or parent or lover, but something that is perfect for us as individuals, for our personal spiritual paths.  Something that we can use to go deeper into our spirituality, whether it is Christianity, Wicca, Buddhism, you name it.   We have the opportunity to learn, to do more, to be more.  For those of us  who are Spiritual Eclectics, we are not just seekers but we are pioneers into an undiscovered country.

Photo: A quiet moment away from it all.  Lunch break on Turkey Creek.

This is Day 2 of this product review series on Renew Life’s Total Body Rapid Cleanse.

Day 2 Tips:

1. The morning and evening fiber drink can be pretty nasty if you toss one scoop of fiber-powder into a glass of cold water.  Here’s a better way:

Put 1 scoop of fiber into a glass.  Take one coffee cup of hot (and I mean hot, not warm) water–or a kettle of hot water if you prefer–and pour about half a cup over the fiber.  Stir so that it dissolves.  Fill the rest of the glass.  If you don’t like the taste (bland, but not bad), then add a little lemon juice.  Stir well.  Tastes like drinking hot lemon water for a sore throat.  The hot water and the stirring will keep the fiber from clumping up and it’s so much easier to swallow.

2.  Drink lots of water.  No kidding.  Even if you normally drink 100 ounces a day like I do…drink more.

Day 2 Results:

1.  Another day of headache.  About like a bad sinus headache.  I’m told this is a sign of detoxing.
2.  Although I’d made plans to stick close to a bathroom just in case of gastric distress, I never had any distress.  Good thing, too, since I had to drive several hours away to visit my mom.  The only distress was really only urgency due to increased urination, another sign of detoxing and, of course, of the diuretics in the cleanse!  I think I stopped at 4 gas stations to tour Florida’s dirtiest bathrooms in the first hour of the trip!  Ten minutes down the road and I was looking for the next place to stop.  But nothing terrible, really.  Day 2 was also the worst of my bathroom visits for the entire cleanse.
3. I began to notice how dehydrated I felt–in spite of all the water I was drinking.

Read on to day 3 and the worst pain of the whole cleanse at http://www.thespiritualeclectic.com/2012/03/18/health-renew-life%e2%80%99s-total-body-rapid-cleanse-review-and-tips-day-3-of-7/.

Maybe it was too many Southern Baptist ministers who preached  that women  must  “submit”  and  “obey”  their  husbands. Maybe it was having big brothers so much older than me who would tickle-torture me if  I  didn’t do comply with their bellowed orders to “Obey me!” In any case, something turned me against the idea of “obedience” and testing when I was very young.

That’s not saying that I wasn’t an obedient child. My father was never known to spare the rod. Ever.

And if I should ever marry again, I’ll probably leave out the  love-honor-obey thing again, too. Unless my guy wants to take that vow  himself! Okay, I joke about it, but if he has to “obey” rather than do something for me because he wants to, I don’t really want his “obedience.”  That would feel more like raping him emotionally.

I recently did something I really didn’t want to do. My closest friends worried about my decision to do it and worried, too, about my physical safety and emotional security. My friends who weren’t quite as close told me I was a fool to do it.

After it was over with, a Christian friend said she interpreted it  as a test of obedience. Would I do something I felt God wanted me to do even though I didn’t want to do it?

It’s funny what that word brought up for me. Obedience. A test of obedience. As a convert from Christianity to Wicca, the idea of a “test of obedience” has such negative connotations.

And yet, my Wiccan friends have similar feelings but more palatable (to me) words. They call it a “challenge” instead of a “test.” (I don’t know—tests always remind me of red ink and my little straight-A  eyes scanning a returned test paper in utter stomach-knotting terror to  glean a single red minus that might disappoint my mommy and daddy!)

No matter how hard it was or how much I didn’t want to do it, I still felt that Spirit was leading me to do this thing. Leading. Not pushing. Not requiring. I still had a choice. I still could have said no and it would have been okay. The situation would  have  resolved  with  someone  else’s  involvement,  not mine. If I did it, there were lessons there for me. If I declined, there were lessons there for me.

But I had the feeling that following through with what I was asked to do would be good in some way, that I would be protected, that all  would be well. I definitely felt the hand of Spirit in it, taking me in that direction if I chose to go.

So was it a test of obedience or a challenge of my faith in connection with Spirit?

The outcome was the same—it’s all in the way it’s interpreted. Hmmm, just like I believe most religions go back to the same Higher Power but it’s interpreted differently.

I’ve used Renew Life’s vitamins and supplements and have found them to be above average. My nutritionist recommends this particular product line and highly recommends cleanses for everyone, not just her junk food junkies (of which I am not one).   This particular product, the Total Body Rapid Cleanse, is a 7-day regimen.  You take 2 capsules in the morning  (bottle #1) on an empty stomach, wait 30 minutes, and then take the fiber (bottle #2) drink (or eat, then wait 2 hours to take your morning dose).  The morning dose starts the detoxification process and the fiber drink binds with the toxins.  The evening dose is 2 pills from bottle #3 to assist with elimination and another dose of the fiber drink.  You can read the rest from the package or any online store selling the product. 

I found the product at my local indie health food store but I’ve seen it in my local Vitamin Shoppe.  I like to support the locals where I can because the staff readily talks to me about issues and recommendations, but if money is an issue,  I’ll tell you that I found it cheaper on Amazon by as much as $5.

Day 1 Tips:

 
1.  Before you buy, read the ingredients, particularly the ingredients in Bottle #3. Some people find that rhubarb causes diarrhea, which is the biggest complaint I’d read in negative reviews…angry, angry, angry reviews.  If you don’t know how certain ingredients affect you, yeah, you may not have as good an experience as I did. 

2. Weigh and measure yourself, particularly around the waist.   Yes, know the pounds AND the inches before you start.  How else will you know for sure what your results are?

3. Plan ahead.  Timing is everything.  The worst days are usually the 2nd and 3rd day, which is why I opted for a long weekend.  I started Day1 on a Friday, teleworking from home, in case of a poor reaction, and then had Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off work.  I didn’t want to chance having to run to the bathroom 6 times in an hour while I was supposed to be in important meetings and I had no idea how my body would respond, especially after reading  short store reviews.

4.  Be reasonable about the outcome you expect.  Why are you doing this cleanse?  Have you heard you can lose 8 to 10 pounds in a week?  Maybe just 5?  (I’ll definitely tell you my results at the end of this series.)  Want to be “regular”?  Want to feel spectacular in 7 days?  Want to break your sugar and fast food addiction?

My reason was purely to detoxify and give my liver a boost.  I didn’t feel I needed improved digestion, regularity, or weight loss from this product.  I exercise about 15 hours a week (and enjoy it), eat mostly organic, have been 98% gluten free for at least 6 months, and don’t drink or smoke. 

I do however eat, drink, and breathe toxins, absorb them through my skin,  and try to outrun them every day.  This is the world we live in and it’s sadly impossible for me to make sure the chemicals and toxins in our food and atmosphere don’t seep into my body. 

Only if I were in a plastic bubble or…oh, wait, no…plastic’s just another toxin in my world.  Give up yet? 

 I figured anything to help get rid of the toxins I can’t help ingesting would be beneficial.  This wasn’t to fix a bunch of problems–just to give me a boost.

Day 1 Results:

The only differences I noticed on the first day was a headache that started a few hours after my morning detoxifying capsules and feeling bloated from the fiber drink.  One Ibuprophen nixed the headache, though I rarely take any kind of painkiller or need them since  going gluten-free.  I felt uncomfortably full from the fiber drink but not in any sort of pain…just blah.  I was easily able to put in a full 10-hour day at my desk, and never had to run for the bathroom, throw up, or post a scathing review on Amazon.  I didn’t change my diet (I already eat in alignment with the recommended foods on the cleanse packaging) and I continued to drink my usual 100 ounces a day of water.

Summary?  Nothing intense; ho hum first day.

Day 2….. Read on.

Not that it’s a bad book.

If I’d done more academic research into empathy, narcissism, and evil before beginning my novel, I might have tried to fit Lilah Burns into the framework of this book instead of  READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE on the Ninth Gate series website.

Here I am in the heart of the Bible Belt.  You can’t throw a stick without doing it in Jesus’ name.

This is still the area of the country where you meet someone for the first time and they have 2 immediate questions: 1.  What’s your name?  2. Which church do you belong to? 

One of the biggest changes for me when I migrated from the private sector to the public sector in 1987, taking a job then as an intern on an Air Force Base, was that I was no longer patted on the head for being female, downgraded in pay for being single,  or downgraded in pay for being married.  I  earned the same as the guy hired to do that same job instead of 40% less as I was accustomed to in private industry.   I also noticed that the Government teams on my side of the negotiation table were usually multi-generational, male and female, and 2-3 different ethnicities while the private industry side of the table was usually comprised of white men over 45 with an occasional white or Asian male mathematical genius around 35.  Oh, yes–the stereotypes were alive and well.  “Who’s on the other side of the table?”  became a game to me after a couple of years, and I was very proud of the diversity on my side of the table.  For the most part, though, my very diverse side of the table was still all Christian, but I thought we were diverse because we had a Mormon and a Catholic among all of us Baptists.

Yes, those were the days when I was a devout Christian, and like most of my fellow “churched’ employees, I complained so often about being discriminated against…when really what I saw as discrimination was simply not being allowed to force my personal brand of spirituality onto everyone else.  I’d never been denied anything at work because I was Southern Baptist–all professional organizations still blessed every work-related meal in Jesus’ name,  retirement ceremonies were opportunities to deliver Christian sermons to a sometimes mandated (and captive) audience,  extra points were given on annual awards write-ups and promotion resumes that included community involvement such as singing in the choir at the Methodist Church or teaching Sunday School, no one lectured me publicly on my spiritual beliefs,  and no one ever told me my career could not progress because of my personal relationship with Jesus. 

When I converted to Wicca in 1997, I was the only Wiccan I knew at work, so I kept it a secret for a while, except from a non-Wiccan colleague in another career field who helped me where he could.  I didn’t know how many pagans were on the same military installation, all in the broom closet, most scared of losing their jobs or losing promotions, of being harrassed or run off the road (as I was twice) or of losing custody of their kids or of public ridicule.

And yes, there was public ridicule.  About the time my co-workers were convinced I wasn’t crazy after all, I attended a 75-person mandatory suicide prevention class in which the military instructor chose to ridicule a distraught pagan  and give extreme details of the man’s personal suffering over a relationship breakup. The situation had nothing to do with his religion but the instructor used it (he told me when I confronted him) as an interesting story to keep the class awake.  Awake and laughing.  Do you think the secret  pagans in the room spoke up?  I didn’t–and I was out of the closest at the time.  There was no way to balance the lurid details and humiliation of that story with the logic I could have presented.   People love sensational stories, and I didn’t have anything to counter with.

Most of the discrimination came from people who never even thought about what it was like to be in a minority or alternative religion.  There was the woman I’d known for 10 years–I’d trained her years before and had just spent my lunch hours for 3 solid weeks drilling her so she could pass a Contracting Officer’s warrant board when she first noticed the little pentacle I wore and BACKED OUT OF THE ROOM, telling me she had no use whatsoever for people like me…though she’d been very happy to take my volunteer help when no one else had time for her.  I was the same helpful person mistaken for a “good Christian”  after she’d discovered my religious beliefs as I’d been before, but her own prejudices came to life in a split second in front of me.

Another coworker, who thankfully retired not long after, had survived cancer by becoming very close to Jesus and thought the rest of us should share her enthusiasm so she littered the only bathroom on the floor with Southern Baptist propaganda, aka the same church magazines I’d grownn up with.  Seriously, you had to reach around a magazine article about how you NEED to be Christian to pluck tissue from the dispenser beside each toilet. I of course was a horrible person for seeing this as a bad thing and feeling she was shoving her religioun down my throat.  Or up my…..yeah.

Personal prejudice is hard enough to deal with for pagans in the workplace, but when it comes from people who “know better”?  Instructors, supervisors, bosses?

When one of my colleagues and closest friends stopped hiding her beliefs, she was harrassed by a Lieutenant Colonel wanting to convert her and make her defend her beliefs (no stranger ever came up to me when I was Christian and insisted I defend my beliefs on cue).  Worse, her supervisor began to harrass her on a regular basis and in a way that was clearly affecting her work, the quality of work she was given, and whether her mad skills were made known through awards and other avenues available to the supervisor.  Yes, all of this was in direct violation of what supervisors are permitted to do but no one spoke up on her behalf.  She refused to “make things worse” by going to the Equal Opportunity office which handles discrimination complaints, so I went on her behalf to see what they recommended.  They told me that they had very few, if any, complaints about religious discrimination on this military base and then….then the counselor I’d gone to see about religious discrimination began to tell me how being Black in America is real discrimination and what hardships he’d endured personally.   Had he misunderstood that I was there to interview him personally rather than ask his guidance in his professional capacity?  No.  As a Christian himself–as he told me, along with how Christians are persecuted–he discounted everything I said and just…did not…understand how I could be anything but Christian.  Hmmm, and I wonder why his office has had so few discrimination complaints related to religion…..

The worst of it for me was from a Colonel who headed up my organization in the late 90’s. I’d managed to keep my beliefs a secret until he found out through a personal connection and then he apparently had many fun chats with other high-level managers about yet another of my eccentricities.  He used to lean into my face, to the point where my eyes would cross, to call me “different” and a “Druid witch,” mainly because those were the only words he could think of that conjured up the vision he had of me in his head.  He told me frequently that I would never get promoted because of my beliefs, that he couldn’t afford to have someone who thought that differently in charge of other people.  He told me I would never be a supervisor or go any higher in the organization, though he courted me heavily to work for him when he retired and started his own company.  Though I was pagan clergy by the time he left, he refused to allow me to give the invocation at any work-related pot-luck lunch, holiday banquet, or professional organization’s buffet.  Instead, men within the organization who were church deacons and lay preachers gave the same invocation in Jesus’ name time and again, with no variety and certainly no non-denominational utterances.  When I did get promoted again, it was outside his organization and by the next promotion, all the people who used to sit and laugh about my religion with him were long gone.

But that tide has been slowing turning, at least in my own Federal workplace, and I’ve seen the biggest changes in the past year.  Some things have happened that I never thought I’d see.

The civilian heading up my organization last year  approached me to ask if I’d consider being a supervisor.  That was something I’d given up on here, mainly because of what the Colonel had repeatedly told me, that my organization would never put a “Druid witch”–inaccurate but his terminolgy–in charge of anything.  She’s a very devout, sincere Christian, and she also knows my religious beliefs…but she didn’t let our different beliefs matter when it came to work, and that’s the way I think it should be. 

A few months after that, I was promoted to a level I’d been told would never happen because of my religion. Though I will admit that I changed a few words on my resume–at the distressed pleadings of my fundamentalist Christian best friend to not beg for people to discriminate–so that my community leadership skills and Circle would be phrased instead as leader of a co-ed spiritual group.  Accurate but not incendiary.  Sounds like I teach Sunday School instead of healing rituals.

And this year, I was asked by the interns hosting the Christmas Party/Holiday Party to give a non-denominational blessing.  Ironically, I was called away for a work emergency but I was tearfully pleased that after offering for 15 years and being turned down to the point of having given up, I was asked.

So that tide is turning.  So far, in a year as of this week, no one has imploded from having someone with different spiritual beliefs as a supervisor. If they have questions, I’m happy to answer.   I know some have wondered and some talk among themselves, but they don’t seem frightened that I’ll make them work late on a full moon night and sacrifice them on top of the photocopier–bwahahahahahaha. (Oh, please–with cutbacks, it’s hard enough to keep enough people to do the job!)  It’s been an absolute pleasure to be a supervisor, and probably the best gig I’ve ever had.  And as far as differing spiritualities, while I may love to discuss when I have the time,  we all get along fine, and that’s a testament to respecting each other’s personal choice on what and how to believe. I work very hard to take care of my folks, and I feel that they take care of me right back.  It’s a pleasant place to be.

Photo copyright by Lorna Tedder, self-portrait with mirrors.

It’s been 15 years since I’ve worn heels.  In 2004, upon ordering me to physical therapy just to be able to walk without tears, my physician declared that I’d be a “flats girl” for the rest of my life.  My dates have seen me wear high heels only when I’m sitting and swinging legs and trying to look sexy–and NOT walking across a restaurant or standing around cocktail parties.

In the last 18 months, I’ve regained the strength and flexibility in my knees that I had 15 years ago.  Okay, they’re not as good as they were at, say 21 (when I didn’t appreciate my knees!), but I’m happy to say that I’m wearing heels again…comfortably.

The first change was 18 months ago when I was doing P90X.  My knees strengthened to the point where they didn’t hurt ALL the time or make me totter like an old woman.

The next change was last summer when I cut out all gluten.  I found that adding back one slice of white bread would make my joints aaaaaaaaache.  Okay, easy answer for that–just don’t eat bread.

But I still couldn’t wear heels.  No pain with walking or bending or even sprinting on the treadmill, but still no high heels.

Then my friend Heather introduced me to APY60, which is American Power Yoga, as an alternative to my yoga day on P90X.  I noticed the biggest changes from it in my core, but I also found that I could comfortably wear heels again.  Of course, I’d just thrown out all the heels I’d kept for years, even after my doctor’s prognosis, because I didn’t think I could ever wear them again.

About six weeks into adding APY60 yoga to my regimen, I was wearing heels, heels, heels!  Then I got caught up in lots of overtime work and too tired to do yoga before falling into bed when I got home.  I stopped my yoga for about six weeks and suddenly, I was having trouble with wearing heels again.  The pain was back in my knees when I wore heels, though I was still fine in flats.

I’m back to yoga at least twice a week and back to heels.  So…why?  Heather had the answer for me.  She noted that in APY60 yoga, we are frequently flexing our toes and as we do, there’s a connection to the knee muscles.   Focusing on flexing your toes while you work out–regardless of the workout–strengthens the knees in a different but very effective way.

Here are the  best things I do for knee health–and this is from someone who had knee pain so bad in 2004 that I could not walk down steps (Read my 2006 novel, DARK REVELATIONS, for how I…I mean my kick-ass heroine…felt about my knee injury being my kryptonite) and could not walk on a treadmill at half a mile per hour:

1.  walking leisurely,

2. omitting wheat from my diet because it causes inflammation in my body, and

3. flexing my toes during workouts, especially yoga or any type of legwork.

Here are 3 ideas for experimenting with the standard “Four Directions” to see if you get a better result, a closer connection with the energies, etc. You will probably find that the energy is mildly to radically different in each experiment and that you want to alter your usual procedures for healing rituals vs protection rituals vs prosperity rituals, for example.

1.  Begin your circle in a different direction.  If you normally begin in the North, as i do, try it in the South or West.  If you begin in the East, try the North.  Because each direction has a different meaning and different “feel” to me, I find that the entire feel of the circle and ritual is different if I begin, for example, in the South, which I associate with passion and creativity or the West, which I associate with healing and emotion. 

2.  Include not four but seven directions.  For me, this has been a very grounding and beautiful experiment that has become a mainstay.  Instead of North, East, South, and West, I will add Above, Below, and Within.    The four directions may make a perfect circle for me but they’ve come to feel somewhat …external.   When I add three more directions, my circle feels more like a sphere, with me including in it in a significant way. Very different energy and more powerful to me.

3.  Consider the local elements in what you associate with the different directions.  I was taught North=Earth, East=Air, South=Fire, and West=Water.  But what if the local lay of the land doesn’t match those directions?  For me, it would be Earth in the North (where I associate the mountains many hours away as well as the farm where I grew up), the South would be water (I’m less than 5 miles from the Gulf of Mexico), the West would be Fire (I associate it with the sun and trips to the desert for my employer),  and East….. Hmmm.   When I think of the East, I already think of light and airy mornings, the owls in the pines just east of my home, and the smell of roses, so I suppose the East already equals air to me.  The most prominent physical feature where I live is the nearby Gulf and the Bay that is an 8-minute walk from my back yard, so there is plenty of water energy here.   I could, depending on where I cast my circle, base the directions on the features of my backyard–the little fish pond or fountain for water, for example, could be in any direction depending on which sacred area of my back yard I choose to stand.

So give these ideas a try.  You don’t have to report back to me, of course, but I’d love to hear different experiences with your experiment.

Aren’t those all-day candle spells great?

If you can stay home with it all day, which I can’t.

Or if you can burn a candle at work, which in my case is highly frowned upon at my workplace.

So here’s an alternative I tested out and found it worked quite delightfully. Not fire magick but water magick–tea magick to be exact.

Instead of leaving a candle to burn all day while I was at work, I bought a special tea cup and a box of tea. Every morning, before I leave for work, I drop a tea bag into a cup of hot water and say a little blessing or prayer or set my intentions. It’s usually something small, just a thought to let steep all day long while I go about my day.

I’ts a small but beautiful daily ritual now, and as valid as any candle magick.

But…I’ve found that I can drink it.

I’ve started throwing a handful or two of fresh spinach into my protein shakes.    Once I turn on the blender, I don’t even taste the spinach in the shake.

So what else is in the blender?  1.5 scoops of Jay Robb Strawberry Whey Protein Powder (my current fav because it’s sugar-free and doesn’t clot in my almond milk when I use almond milk), 2 cups of frozen blueberries, a little water,  and …well, that’s it this time.  I decided to forgo the strawberries, pineapple, or  raspberries this time and the organic cocoa powder to make it into yummy chocolate. 

This blender pitcher full made 3 glasses, for a total of 344 calories and 41 grams of protein.  Very filling and delish!

When my path changed to Wicca, I noted quite a few of my Christian friends were “tolerant” of my beliefs–tolerant not being the same thing as supportive–but they also let me know that my beliefs were second class to theirs.  These were all variations on a theme:  my religion is better than your religion.

Unfortunately, it’s no different among my fellow pagans.  There still seems to be a need to compete.

I’m not talking about who has the prettiest ritual robe or the biggest group, though there is some that as well.  It’s more about who’s doing what the “right” way.  Example: the way I was brought up my path, we used cords to signify the different degrees.  A few months ago at a public ceremony, a group I didn’t know criticized my cords as well as those of others attending.  This group has some very lovely traditions of their own, which I don’t do but I do think they’re pretty cool.  They signify their degrees by necklaces about 18 inches long with the pendant varying.  I’ve seen other traditions do something similiar and I really like the idea, but I’d never tell someone that’s the only way as one of their young priestesses told me.  One of my own students was in attendance and began to question whether this was correct.  Well, yes, it’s correct for the members of that group.  But not for me.  And I told my student that he is welcome to adopt that tradition if it appeals to him, as well as wearing his cords.  I see no conflict.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used my cords for perfect circles or for concentric circles–including a ritual wedding I performed in 2006 where each perfect circle was outlined in particular stones and crystals to amplify particular energies.  My cords have multiple functions, and I like that.    And while I loved the ritual jewelry this dissenting priestess had to show me, I giggled at the idea of using it in the same way I use my cords.  My, but that would be a teensy circle!

My point is, we do things differently.  And that’s okay (in my opinion, anyway).  I happen to like diversity in almost everything.  As the interns who work for me will tell you quickly, I don’t believe there’s any one right way to do something, just different ways.  So I don’t understand the need for others to put their noses in the air and insist that their particular path is the only correct one or even the best one.  I’m on the path that’s right for ME.

That extends to fellow pagans who follow different trads or none at all as well as to those who follow completely different religions.  I see the beauty in all of it and enjoy watching the rituals and ceremonies of differnt belief systems. Sometimes, I will adopt something I see that really calls to me.  That suits me because I’m not a very structured person, I like to blaze my own trails, and I’m very, very heavy on experimenting with different techniques to feel the different effects. 

So don’t find fault with me if I choose to begin my circle in the North if you start in the East.  My students know that I repeatedly challenge them to try it starting in the South or the West just to see how it feels and how that one little change affects their results. 

One more thing about this need to feel competitive in your spirituality:  I make mistakes.  Hmmm, no, I think I’ll explain that as I have different experiences.  Sometimes they don’t work as I planned or as I thought, but they are experiences that  I build my future self upon.  They are part of my continuing education.  I don’t find any shame in that.  If something doesn’t work for me or if I struggle with something, don’t pat me on the head and call me an amateur. 

I am not. 

But I am aggressive with experimenting and sharing what I learn.  That is the extent of my need to “compete” with you spiritually–to challenge you to take your personal spiritual practice to a higher level.  Or…to a deeper level.   There’s really no difference in getting to more than you are now, except in what you call it.

Channeling, from what I’ve observed, is a way of tapping into deeper insights, whether the person doing the channeling interprets them as being from the Higher Self,  a dark but highly evolved corner of the brain, a spirit guide, or some sort of alien entity.  Honestly, I don’t care so much about how the person perceives the insights they share as I do the message they have to offer.

I’ll include of few of my favorites in this post, by the way. RuneHealing’s new channeling videos are now up on Youtube, though you may already be familiar with his meditations to clear negativity and his energy work videos.

As an observer, I’ve noted a few things about people who channel that have helped me distinguish real from fraud.

1. The message itself tends to contain information or insights that the person wouldn’t normally know or know how to express. I’ve seen teens do this, and there is just no way they would ever know such information on their own. Sometimes it’s private information; sometimes it’s very wise insights. It’s amusing to hear a 14-year-old deliver an incredibly beautiful and insightful message and then ask the adults present what it means. The real-deal folks tend to be very consistent in their messages.  I’ve followed the teachings of one particular channeler for the last decade and the message never falters, unlike with just about every other teacher or preacher I’ve know whose message changes at least slightly as they grow and change as individuals.  The source of the information, whether Higher Self or  guide or what, very definitely seems to be a different personality to me, at least in the cases where I know the channeler well. Not radically different but at least as different as a sibling or twin.

2. Very often, the voice and sometimes vocabulary will change. Those who listen to Esther Hicks of Abraham-Hicks when she channels are familiar with the change in voice to a clipped “Good morning” of “Abraham.”  To me, the vocal change has been the most notable difference in people I’ve known personally who do this.  I can tell they are tapped in or hooked in or connected to this source of insights when their voices change, usually to something lower and with a different tenor or texture.  I’ve worked with new channelers who were completely unaware of the vocal change until I brought it to their attention.

3.  Often, but not every time, I will notice a change in the channeler’s eyes.  I’ve seen pupils widen many times.  Other times, they stare at a spot in space, lost in a trance-like meditative state.  Again, this isn’t every time, but for a couple of people I know well, it’s been a startling thing to witness and usually matches the vocal change.

Do I channel?  Hmmm, not in the sense I describe above, but I understand it moreso as a writer and often…as a very good friend.

I have written books that felt like SERVICE.  Like a mission.  I had to work at those books.  Other books, I have felt as if I was tapping in to something that was both deep within or far outside myself. When my Lauren Hartford writing team decided to put together our pagan/Universal Law “instructional novel,”   Fire Burning in Water, I finished my part of the novel in a matter of days, with almost no editing required for my part.  The words just rushed out onto the page with no pre-planning.  It was more like transcribing the story as someone else told me, even though I didn’t hear words….just knew the next thing.   I could not hold back.  I HAD to write, even though I didn’t know what was coming next.  My part of the story was not exactly uplifting (it’s an alternate reality with some retro-causal theory thrown in), and I found that my part of the story was upsetting to me.  While I was writing it, I could not get a long-lost friend out of my mind.   A very bizarre experience for me!   As a group, we decided to change up my  part of the story just a little but it’s still essentially as I received (?) and wrote it.  About 2 years later, I received news on my old friend and his disturbing situation.  Almost everything I had written had come true for him in the month before the news and secrets I had never expected played out just as they had in the book. 

Was I channeling a spirit guide or alien entity?  Um, not that I’m aware of!  Maybe it was just a matter of tapping into something I recognized about that person at a subconscious level and letting it out before I was willing to recognize his secrets and addictions on a conscious level. 

The way I most commonly am accused of channeling is when I’m writing a heartfelt letter, usually an email because I have awful penmanship and keyboards let me move fast.  Sometimes, it’s like I have to say something to them and don’t know what’s coming out.  I simply start typing and hit send when I’m done…and find out later that I’ve freaked them out a bit because I’ve told them something way too personal that I didn’t know and given them help with a situation that I had no idea existed.  I do have to be careful with that in my novels, because I will have someone on my mind while I write and later will be accused of spilling their secrets when they’ve never  told me.

Again, I don’t really consider those examples to be channeling in the way we normally think of channeling.  It’s just a feeling of “must…write…this…now.”   Then I write stinging or unusual insights. My voice is my writing voice and yes, I do get intently focused and trance-like when I’m writing like crazy, so maybe it is.    

But think about it.  We all probably tap into that insightful source–wherever it originates–more than we realize.  Some capture that in video; others in writing.  I’m sure artists and musicians do the same.  It’s a flow of creative energy to me, but I’d love to hear from more scientific minds on how they express “channeled” thoughts.

Solstice ritual circle set-up.  Fire pit in the center of the circle, holiday lights around the circle and path.

Now for the rest of Lorna’s Rules to Behaving Yourself in Circle, and while  it’s a long and painful list of don’ts, it’s most painful because of the need to ask people to behave.

#6.  Don’t make sex part of the event unless it’s supposed to be. When the group leader schedules the Great Rite as part of the event, no problem.  When distracted members are going at it like bunnies in the closet, it’s time for them to get a room…elsewhere.

This was why my second circle ended. One of our more prominent members, a middle-aged woman, began an affair and hid it from her husband by telling him she was at events at my house, whether she was or not.  She lied to him, she lied to me, I worked with her husband, he blamed me for their break-up, drama ensued, etc, etc.   The first time I realized the boyfriend was more than just an interested guest, I was giving a workshop on astrology.  I happened to glance up at a small sea of interested faces and noticed that the boyfriend had snuggled up behind her and was busily squeezing her double-D’s.  I had just divorced and was celibate at the time, so my train of thought went right out the window!   Within a few weeks, their public displays had become so blatant that most of the group members felt too uncomfortable around them.  I failed to kick them out early enough. I ended their participation and the friendship as well, but by then, the circle had dissipated.

Still, the public groping does not compare to her and the boyfriend sneaking away while the rest of us were in an intense working.  Imagine hearing howls–a la Porky’s Lassie scene–while you’re conducting a banishing.

#7. Don’t bring drugs to the ritual or workshop.  Seriously.  I may not care what you do on your own time or in your own home, but please don’t bring illegal substances onto my property.  I work for the military, as do other members of my circle, and your insistence that no one tell you what to do can have tremendous ramifications on our careers, reputations, and finances.  Park down the street, leave it in your car or hide it in the woods, and walk to my house.

#8.  Don’t get naked unless your group leader says it’s okay.  Don’t insist that you absolutely must be skyclad for a ritual or some other pagan event.  That may or may not be the practice of a particular group.   Be especially vigilant if there are children around.  I bowed out of a much-anticipated pagan community camping trip during the time my divorce was going on because two male campers  in their 20’s insisted they would go naked if they damned well pleased and there was nothing us prudes could do to stop them. The camp coordinator had purposely set up a separate area for “natural” enjoyment of the weekend, away from the family/children area, but they told us they would not abide by it and those of us with kids should “get over it.”  Since my soon-to-be-ex had just discovered Christianity, I was the (gasp) witch and therefore questionable parent,  and custody issues were being decided, I stayed home with my kids as did most of the others with children.  That was my prerogative, though–I was a participant but not the leader of the group.  It was also the end of my family’s involvement with that group.

#9.  Don’t come to circle drunk. I know, I know.  I’m the one who made the joke about “Friends don’t let friends astral project and drive.” I’m not against drinking and do serve wine at some Sabbat feasts as well as champagne at my Burning Bowl Ritual for Winter Solstice.  Being too drunk to stand up in ritual is more than just bad form–it’s a numbing of the senses and the group energy.  I have found that many things can affect energy in circle–too much sugar, alcohol, drugs, anger, jealousy.  The problem with drinking too much is that people tend to either get sloppy or mean.  You don’t want to trip and fall in the bonfire (kinda the first rule of not burning a witch).  While that hasn’t happened in any circles I’ve been in, I have seen participants show up tanked and spend the evening making cutting remarks about and even to the leader of the circle.

#10. Don’t carry on side conversations or interrupt with pithy observations. Do you really need to be a comedian during a ritual for healing?  Yes, we know you’re there and in need of attention and  want to have your existence validated, but your antics distract from the focus of energy.  If you want to know why something is done a certain way, wait until the ritual is over and ask.  Don’t disrupt the flow of energy to ask a basic question, especially if your High Priestess expects you to know that answer due to actual study.  Learning is  a wonderful thing, but it can be done silently, too.  As for other side conversations, I can’t think of a single time that it would be appropriate to discuss a football game, your former friend’s pregnant teen, your idiot boss, or Newt vs Mitt while the High Priest is performing an altar devotional.

#11.  Don’t assume that because you’re older, you are an Elder to the group. This rule is for older participants who are new to working with groups, particularly multi-generational groups.  My current group has one of the sweetest, gentlest older women I have ever known.  She is not a spiritual leader and is usually very much in the background in the group–and then she opens her mouth and spouts incredible insights.  I’ve never seen her order around the younger group members or pretend she knew what they should do with their lives.  However, I have had temporary members (on probation, yes) who took it on themselves to tell my 20-somethings how to live or what to do that would have been great advice in 1975.  They could not understand that my students were not showing up at a workshop to hear their advice.  These Baby Boomers were neophytes on this path, not Elders.  Ironically, that lack of respect for their teacher and other students came through in other ways, including cell phone interruptions (because their calls were more important), side conversations, and nit-picking.  They didn’t understand that you can have a 25- or 35-year-old teacher and a 65-year-old neophyte and that “kid” should be revered for his knowledge and experience he’s willing to share.

#12.  Don’t steal. That may sound like a no-brainer, but my God can be a vengeful God and so can I. I will send my flying monkeys after you.

In developing my current circle, I went through a period of allowing strangers into my home in small groups, sometimes based on referrals and sometimes after having a sweet tea with them at a cafe to make sure they weren’t crazy witch-hunter preachers in disguise.  Sometimes, I just took a chance because my intuition told me to.  For the most part, this worked out very well, and the first 3 people to come to my home have been core members of the group for years.   Here in the Bible Belt, it’s sometimes hard to make connections with other pagans until you know a few people and have their trust.  When we became a closed group, we began relying more on referrals from current members so that new people would have the right energy to mesh with ours. That’s a popular complaint I hear from people who really want to be a part of a group but don’t have an “in,” but there’s usually a good reason a group becomes a closed group.

Just before I closed our group officially, two probationary members (yes, sign language fans from Part 1)  brought an acquaintance who was a bit older than I am and didn’t clear it with me first. My alarm bells went off when she walked in.  Something didn’t feel right.  During the dinner I provided and social time, the tag-along refused to tell the rest of the group about her path or anything about her other than a first name.  Since my group shares deeply, this was another red flag. When one person clams up, others don’t want to share.  During the workshop, she went into the bathroom where she was heard rummaging through a cabinet.  After she left and the probationary members left, my daughter discovered that several personal items were missing that she had stashed in the cabinet before dinner.

Okay, I got the message–time to restructure into something better.  Perhaps nothing else would have made me close my circle but this.

#12. Keep an open mind. Don’t nitpick and fault-find how the workshop or ritual is done.  Especially if you are not paying for it. Almost every circle leader and teacher I know has some story about a member or guest muttering under their breath–or worse, loudly arguing with the leader or teacher–that THAT isn’t how he or she does it or was taught.  My writing partners and I covered some of this in Celebrating the Tower Card:  Third Degree Challenges, Shielding, Witch Wars, and Cult Detection where two new Third Degrees slammed other Third Degrees for not using the exact Quarter Call wording from a certain page of their lessons.  Everyone has a different way of getting to the same place, I believe. Some paths are more structured than others.  I myself cannot easily stay within a particular structure and I’m forever finding new things that amp up my spiritual life and abilities even more.    So listen up and even if you don’t want to try something new in your own practice, try to gain an appreciation for the differences and similarities in other paths.

If a workshop is worth attending, then it’s worth listening to respectfully…or quietly leave so others can. Don’t interrupt to tell the teacher she’s all wrong or that you don’t like the topic. I do regret that I didn’t tell my last guest to do this in a workshop to leave immediately.  I had put together a ritual-writing workshop and one of our newer members had asked to bring a guest whom he believed would be a nice fit because she’d been to many, many different groups like ours. (That should have been a hint.)  The topic was pre-announced, with plans to do 1 or 2 rituals near the end.  Less than 2 minutes into the workshop, she began asking questions that were really just demands for why I was wasting her time when she didn’t believe in rituals.  After that, nothing could be said without an interruption from both her and the new member who suddenly had decided he didn’t like rituals after all. My bad.  I should have said, “I’m sorry, but this workshop obviously isn’t for you.  Thanks for joining us for dinner and have a good night.”  But I was trying to be a good hostess and wrongly put one persnickety guest’s whining ahead of my tried and true students.  When she left with  her sponsor, the rest of the group stayed for several hours, way past my bedtime, to get the info they’d come for. Which brings me to….

I am a student of my own experiences. So are you.

Part of dealing with the “contrast” of disruptive attendees is that we figure out what we do want in a group or circle and what we won’t put up with.  In discussing this subject with other circle leaders, what I heard again and again was that the disruptive person who was called out on behavior once was eventually asked to leave, sometimes after great detriment to the group.

Not just us pagans:

Over a decade ago, a Wiccan High Priest from New York–with a fairly large pagan church under his guidance–showed me a book about dealing with the dynamics of personalities within a church.  It was intended for Christian pastors. He explained that even though the spiritual groups were Christian in the book, he had encountered the same issues among pagans, and that the book had been very helpful in dealing with the “people issues” of being a spiritual leader and teacher.  I remember being amused at the time. I’d grown up Southern Baptist and had seen all manner of hypocrisy and disrespect in my hometown church.  In fact, it was that kind of mistreatment of others that drove me away from the Christian church.  At the time the High Priest told me this, I’d been a solitary for years and hadn’t dealt with many pagan groups, either online or offline.  There was still a part of me that thought my new religion was somehow less tarnished that the Southern Baptist antics I’d so often seen.  As he tried to tell me, people are people, regardless of their spiritual path, and some will be prone to drama and misbehavior, regardless of the tenets of their religion.

In summary, I’d like to point out that my current circle, a closed group with occasional open events, has not had any of these annoying behaviors  from our core group.  But it did take a while to fine-tune the membership until we had just the right people.  We do try to bring in new members occasionally, at least on a trial basis.  I’ve led 4 different groups (from my home) over the last decade and been involved with 3 or 4 others as an occasional participant.  The other groups I’ve led, the ones with the problem children, did not last longer than 6 months because of the kinds of problems I describe here.

What it’s all about, that common denominator in these WTF instances I’m describing, is respect or lack thereof.   My current circle’s membership has genuine love and respect for each other, and that has made us a family.  But it’s more than just respect for me as the group’s leader or teacher. It’s respect for other students, respect for yourself so that you get the most of out of the precious knowledge made available to you, and respect for your Gods.

The lack of respect I’ve seen isn’t limited to one particular age group, by the way.  In my own experiences, it is often the parents rather than the teens who act out but that may just be my own dynamic.  I have never had one second’s worth of disrespect from any participant under 22, perhaps because they are so eager to learn and soak up anything I can show them.   That’s the best kind of student, in my opinion:  enthusiastic, mentally engaged,  open-minded, and committed to learning more–through reading, listening, participating with us, and experimenting on their own.

As for the others, I have this fantasy that they are one day right smack dab in the middle of an exorcism and wish they’d been paying attention….